


I wish I had a gentle mind and a spine made up of iron.

by coolangelsthesis



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxiety, Anxiety Disorder, Crying, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, M/M, Miscommunication, Panic Attacks, Yuri Has A Bad Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-14
Updated: 2017-01-14
Packaged: 2018-09-17 12:27:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9323540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coolangelsthesis/pseuds/coolangelsthesis
Summary: Yuri had learned to deal with it. It's something that can easily engulf you, wave after wave crashing down until you're taken in the undertow. When you’re strong enough, you learn to firmly root your feet in the sand, stand brave as you take the crashes, one by one, and come out stronger. Yuri had years of training; he wasn't going to just let himself become a victim of his own head. He refused to.But sometimes he was weak. Sometimes his knees gave out underneath him. Sometimes he couldn’t find the strength to pull himself out before his throat tightened and he started to drown.He hated those times.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Having really bad anxiety myself, seeing how Yuri's anxiety depicted is so. so good. I love you my boy, and so does Victor okay  
> Based off of a prompt request that got a little out of hand-- "things you said that i wasn’t meant to hear"
> 
> Title is from "Marrow" by St. Vincent
> 
> And a big thanks to ceilingfan5 for being my beta, as usual :*
> 
> Happy reading!

Anxiety works in the oddest of ways.

Things can be going well— storybook perfect, actually, with so much love and happiness and understanding— and then there’s one thing. One tiny, miniscule thing that anxiety latches its teeth onto. Then it rips out the pages of the storybook and mangles them up between its claws.

Yuri had learned to deal with it. It's something that can easily engulf you, wave after wave crashing down until you're taken in the undertow. When you’re strong enough, you learn to firmly root your feet in the sand, stand brave as you take the crashes, one by one, and come out stronger. Yuri had years of training; he wasn't going to just let himself become a victim of his own head. He refused to.

But sometimes he was weak. Sometimes his knees gave out underneath him. Sometimes he couldn’t find the strength to pull himself out before his throat tightened and he started to drown.

He hated those times.

With Victor at his side, those times weren’t as bad as they used to be. Now he had someone he could fall back on, and while Victor was still trying to fully _understand_ how to overcome Yuri’s mental weaknesses, he did his best. If anything, he was a shoulder to cry on, a confidant that would keep his darkest fears hidden under lock and key. He stayed by his side, and never left him.

Victor was getting better, though. Slowly. He was still dreadful at dealing with people crying in front of him, but he had learned the right things to tell Yuri, and when to use them, and when to give him his space, to sort things out on his own. Those tiny things, the ones he used to tell Yuri he loved him.

But— maybe Yuri was overthinking things, he had a way of doing that— he had always wondered if it was hard for Victor, too. Having to deal with someone else’s emotions, keep guard of them as they stand helpless in the tides, carefully watch for any sign they were drowning.

Yuri never wanted to feel like a burden. All this, but not to mention the stress Victor piled onto himself by remaining Yuri’s coach while training. He didn’t show it, but Victor had to be exhausted. He had to be. Victor was multi-talented, but one of his most impressive skills was hiding his problems behind cookie cutter smiles.

_How selfish._

He hid his exhaustion behind disgruntled noises, halfhearted complaints about how Yuri stayed up too late and never let him get any beauty rest.

_Still holding him back._

His love was real, Yuri at least knew that much. His love was blinding, so warm it could melt the ice they practiced on into a bubbling lake. He knew that, but still. But _still_.

Victor shouldn’t shoulder the burden of his weakness. How selfish. He was only holding Victor back, slowly squeezing the life out of his career until it went limp and cold in his hands.

The sound of his alarm going off loud and obnoxious in his ears made Yuri finally pull the covers away from his face. He’d been up for hours already, stewing in his own head, but it was easier to lie in bed, chest heavy and stomach relentlessly churning too much, unbearably, than get up and start the day. Victor had left already at the ungodly hour of six in the morning for his training. He even moved around his schedule for the sake of Yuri’s…

Yuri shut off his phone and glanced at the time. From the soft glow of light streaming in through the curtains from outside, it was late morning, somewhere between the time he could leisurely get ready and frantically gather himself together.

At the end of the bed, a large, fluffy tail thump- thumped against the sheets. Makkachin lifted his head off of his paw pillows and panted gleefully at Yuri, the sincerest and warmest good morning he could have asked for-- next to Victor. Smiling softly, Yuri leaned over and scratched him behind his ears, in the perfect spot that he learned Makkachin liked. He was rewarded with a face full of tongue and dog slobber.

“Good morning,” he laughed, trying out his Russian; not bad, but he still has a long way to go. Makkachin licked Yuri’s hand, whapping his tail excitedly against the bed. Then he was off, bounding for the kitchen for breakfast.

Yuri tried on a smile. When he stepped back and thought about it, he was working himself up over nothing. Again.

But still, he felt proud of himself. Yeah, he’d trembled a bit, stumbled, but he managed to wade out the tides early on. It was progress.

*

The time between ‘calm-and-relaxed-jog-to-the-rink’ and ‘oh-dear-god-I-needed-to-leave-ten-minutes-ago’ always had a knack for suddenly disappearing. Yuri cursed that false sense of security as he bolted out the front of Victor’s apartment; Makkachin gave him a sad sleepy sigh as he closed the front door.

He cursed the winter fog, too, for blinding up his glasses, making it hard to see where he was going, morphing the buildings he jogged past into a monotonous sea of grey. His fiancé was a notorious pushover, so he wasn't expecting the harshest of punishments if he was a little bit late. But still. It made Victor look bad, too, for being so lenient about those sorts of things. What would Yakov think? Or Yurio?

He tried to shake off those thoughts, pushing them to the back of his mind. Now wasn't the time for that. As long as he was patient and relied on his muscle memory, he’d make it to the rink eventually. He'd just make up for the lost practice time with more difficult jumps.

With a face flushed red and lungs raw from the cold, Yuri made it to the ice rink— just in the nick of time, too, with seconds to spare before he was officially declared late. He took a couple seconds at the front of the doors to catch his breath and clear his mind.

As soon as he reached out for the handles, the doors pushed open by themselves. Someone was standing there, almost like they were waiting, keeping guard for Yuri’s arrival.

Yurio.

“Oi, katsudon,” he said dryly, flicking his hair back and out of his face. He had his hands shoved deep in his packet pockets and he wore his trademark scowl, this one with three times more bite than usual. “Took you long enough. Victor was going to make me go grab you. What took you so long?”

“I’m… I’m on time, though,” Yuri replied, giving his phone a quadruple-over to make sure that _yes,_ he was right. Training started at 12:00. It was 12:01.

“Not today, moron. Don’t you remember? An hour earlier on Fridays. It’s always been like that.”

“It’s not Fri— _oh_.” He checked his phone again for validation, the screen proved him wrong. … How could he have missed that? Hadn’t set an alarm correctly? Or possibly slept through an entire day, or a week, maybe even a month even, without anyone bothering to tell him or wake him up? “Oh no.”

Victor had been waiting on him. A whole hour, and all Victor had given him was radio silence—no texts, no calls, no passive-aggressive mentions on Twitter. Nothing. Could Victor have been mad at him? Here Victor was, waking up in a race against the sun before dawn, churning out practice jumps and loops on five-something hours of sleep, and here Yuri was, having his fiancé wait a whole _hour_ for him to show up. His stomach started to do backflips, uncanny and uncomfortable in the pit of his stomach, and he knew what that meant. The moon leaned closer to the earth and the tides decided to grow more powerful and more menacing, skulking in from the line of the horizon, creeping closer, closer, ever closer—

Yurio cut into Yuri’s thoughts with a quick sharp sigh, then grabbed Yuri by the sleeve of his shirt. “Ugh. Standing there panicking will just make you even more late. Come on.” He pulled Yuri inside the rink, past the front doors, into the locker rooms, shaking him off with feigned disgust.

Yurio gave him a once, twice-over before sighing again, resigning to himself. “You can… take your time, if you want. I’ll let Victor know you’re here.”

Yuri blinked. “T-Thanks, Yurio…”

He simply responded with a grunt and a small nod, leaving out one of the doors that led to the rink, leaving Yuri alone with his thoughts. Closing his eyes, he drew in a long breath, filling his lungs with air up until the point it hurt. Yurio was acting kind, _too_ kind for any normal day run-of-the-mill Yurio. But why? He hadn’t done anything to deserve whatever sort of generosity Yurio was offering him.

He took at least a dozen odd deep breaths after that— even if he never had much luck with ‘meditative breathing exercises’ or whatever— and set down his bag, worked off his jacket, and tried to create a façade strong enough so that Victor wouldn’t notice anything was wrong. He could play the part well enough.

When walking out to the rink, Yuri fully expected to get trampled by his boyfriend, pinned into a hug as tight as a body-sized tourniquet, locking him in place on the floor as Victor gave him a stern lecture as to why he shouldn’t be late, that they should just try practicing together at the same time instead. But instead, the rink was quiet. Still.

Mila was on the other side of the ice, smiling down at her phone, completely unaware of Yuri’s presence.  The other skaters— Georgi, Yurio— were nowhere to be seen.

But Victor and Yakov were there. Standing close together, talking, talking about something important, Yuri could tell as much from the worried crease in Victor’s brow.

The knots in his stomach tightened.

They were out of Yuri’s earshot, but he could tell Victor was doing most of the talking, but he could hear the sound of his name. He could have heard Victor say his name from a mile away, the ineffable love he breathed into the vowels of his name always sounding so poetic. Victor made his name, full of empty promises, too sharp on the tongue and yet too weak, just like him, sound beautiful.

He couldn’t help himself. He was curious. He wanted to know what gave Victor the right to say his name so beautifully while wearing such a look of pain at the same time. On careful feet and with the rows of seats keeping him hidden, Yuri moved in closer, just until he could listen in on their conversation.

“… I don’t know what to do,” Victor said, Yuri catching him mid-sentence. “Sometimes it feels like I’m doing everything wrong. Sometimes he wants to be left alone, other times he doesn’t.”

Yakov sighed. “And?”

“And it’s… it’s difficult, Yakov! What if… what if…”

“What are you saying, then,” Yakov said, getting impatient, “That this isn’t right for him?”

“What if _I’m_ not right for him.”

Yuri’s blood ran cold, freezing ice cold, so cold his toes had gone numb and his fingers were shivering, and he tuned out of the rest of their words, just becoming static tickling at his ears. It was like something inside the knots working and twisting in his stomach had gone loose and the beast it had kept tethered down rediscovered freedom. This beast was forcing him underneath dark murky water, shoving him down into the violent currents to hide the evidence. _No air._ Like his world shattered to pieces in slow motion.

He should have known. Deep in the dark recesses of his mind, he knew it was all too good to be true. Victor as his coach, Victor loving him, wanting to marry him, wanting to live with him; Victor Nikiforov, of _all_ people loving him, Katsuki Yuri, a nobody from nowhere who had only placed silver in the Grand Prix because he had a legend wrapped around his finger. The dream was fun while it lasted, but reality slapped him hard in the face, shook him off, and tossed him back down on the ground. Things were never storybook perfect.

His feet were moving before the rest of his body had taken notice, cowering backwards, back to the lockers, back to grab his things and go. He didn’t want to be a burden. He didn’t want to make Victor worry over _him_ , over _this…_ this stupid thing, this monster that destroyed all of the progress he had managed to make. This wasn’t Victor’s problem to deal with, and he refused to make him suffer by proxy.

Time had blinked past him, or maybe his mind had blanked out, because Yuri took in a breath too sharp and suddenly he was sitting down, sitting down in the locker room staring at his palms, at his fingertips dyed a faintish blue—not enough blood, not enough air? His head was still spinning. He wasn’t dizzy. His heart was pounding too loud in his ears and he would love to do nothing more than sink his hands into his ribcage and pull the fucking thing out.

 _Oh_ , he thought, out-loud or in his head, he wasn’t too sure, _I’m having a panic attack._

Dammit.

Goddammit, Yuri.

He had been doing so well. Making so much _improvement_. There hadn’t been a bad episode like this, not for a long time. He had always been afraid for the next wave to hit, always looming in his peripheral. He had Victor at his side, sweet perfect lovely Victor who Yuri never deserved, who put so much energy into giving Yuri the strength to stand on his own, but Yuri poisoned it. He always did.

Yuri didn’t realize the crying at first, not until he tasted salt. He furiously wiped them away, gritting his teeth together to stop any more from falling.

 _How pathetic_. _Stop crying, grab your stuff and leave. Victor doesn’t want you here at the rink._

That wasn’t true.

_Quit fooling yourself. He’s got his love of skating back, he doesn’t need to coach you anymore. You’re dead weight._

Stop it, please.

_You know it’s true._

No stop it, please stop—

Out of the foggy corner of his eye, Yuri noticed the door to the locker rooms swing open, a shadow sweep across the floor followed by the soft pad of footsteps. He tried to move, tried to hide his shame, but he was frozen with fear.

That voice hurt even more, a mix of love and endearment and confusion and fear and horror. “Yuri?”

His stomach tightened again, nausea eating away at his intestines.

Three large steps closed the gap between them-- Victor’s shoes were loud against the floor, sharp, painful. He kneeled in front of Yuri, taking in the sight of him. Yuri didn’t have the heart to look, but Victor’s hands on his shoulders were so _gentle_. The shaky breaths Victor drew hurt Yuri’s ears, like violin strings snapping.

“Yuri, are you alright? Did something happen? Are you hurt?” Victor asked, his voice just barely a whisper in an attempt to keep his worry at bay. Those hands were massaging his shoulders, winding around him in a hug. “ _Yuri_. Yuri, talk to me.”

“V-Vic—” Yuri tried to speak, but his voice was trapped in his throat, his lungs were too tight and screaming for air. “I— I… I—”

It might have been the warmth of Victor’s hug, or the worry in Victor’s voice, or the sea of anxiety flooding his brain, but something inside of Yuri cracked. The last remaining piece of his façade collapsed and the dam burst and Yuri was crying, crying so hard his eyes stung, then his head, then his hands from clutching onto Victor so tightly. Each breath brought with it another guttural wail, cutting through him from the inside out. Like lightning striking the same place over and over again, the clap of the thunder knocking what little breath he had in his lungs. And all the while Victor simply held onto him, rubbed his back, whispered words of reassurance, tried his best not to start sobbing too— Yuri heard his breath hitch, reining back his tears before they even started.

Yuri truly hated himself. He hated himself for his weakness. He’d tried, tried so _hard_ , but he would never grow stronger than this monster-- his monster. He hated himself for crying, for sounding so pathetic like a child as he cried into Victor’s shoulder. He hated doing this to Victor, for wasting his time, for making him worry. Victor must have wanted an out, and this was the perfect opportunity. Yuri didn’t want to leave him. Not just yet…

But still, Victor held on through the storm, clutching to Yuri until his crying lessened and his hyperventilating evened out. When he pushed out of their hug, Victor gladly gave him his space. The front of Victor’s shirt was all damp and wrinkled in the shape of his features, his eyes and the lenses of his glasses and his lips and nostrils. Yuri would have laughed if he could, but he felt too weak. Tired. Emotionally spent.

“I-I’m… s-sorry,” Yuri murmured, voice dry and cracked from crying. He took off his glasses, wet from tears, and rubbed at his eyes. He was still too nervous to look at Victor. “Y-You didn’t need t-to s-see that.”

Victor made a flabbergasted noise, one Yuri would have likely made fun of him for. “What do you mean I didn’t need to see that?” His words were harsh but his voice was so gentle. “Yuri… we are partners, you don't have to hide your feelings from me. We are in this together. Now, _please_ , what's wrong? What happened?”

“N-nothing happened. I'm f-fine.” Sheepishly, Yuri glanced upwards, meeting Victor’s eye; the frown he wore said he did _not_ believe him, not for one second. “W-Why?”

“Well, for starters, you showed up an hour late, and two, you just spent twenty minutes crying on me. Don’t you think I have a right to be worried?”

Yuri remained silent, tearing his gaze away again. Looking at him hurt too much. Instead he focused on the gold band on his finger, gently running his thumb over its smooth surface.

He heard Victor sigh, then felt a hand on his shoulder. “Listen, Yuri. You don’t have to tell me anything if you don’t want to, but I care about you _so much_ , and it hurts to see you in pain when I can’t do anything to help you—”

“I… I heard what you said to Yakov,” Yuri said, cutting Victor off. He glanced back up again, met with another confused look.

“Wh-What are you talking about, Yuri?”

He knew Victor had a bad memory, but _honestly,_ he was awful at lying.

“You know… a-about whether you are… right for me, as my coach,” Yuri couldn’t get through the words without tears threatening to well up again, invisible hands wrapping around his neck. “You’ve been looking for an excuse to resign at my coach, haven’t you? W-Well… here is your excuse, Victor. I don’t… I don’t want to be a burden on you any l-longer.”

Victor looked hurt now, like a hard punch to the stomach. He set his other hand on Yuri’s shoulder, gripping tight like his life depended on it. “But you’re not a burden! I… you… you have it all wrong. Why would I ask you to move to Russia with me if I didn’t want to coach you?”

“B-Because of Yakov? You couldn’t train with him in Hasetsu, or… or anywhere else.”

“ _No_ , Yuri. It’s because of you. You made Hasetsu my home, so I want to make St. Petersburg yours.”

Now Yuri was confused. “W-What do you mean?”

Victor laughed once, dry and almost out of desperation. His eyes, as blue and as gentle as the open sky, glistening with the flood he was holding back. “It still isn’t obvious to you that you mean the world to me?”

Yuri’s breath hitched. Victor smiled softly, lovingly; he lifted a hand up to Yuri’s face, tucking a strand of hair, now almost down to his chin, behind his ear, then over the still-damp corners of his eyes.

“What you heard between me and Yakov... I was asking for his advice. I was not… the greatest of coaches before, and that’s not fair to you. With me training again _and_ coaching you, you deserve only the best coaching. Because I don’t want to leave you to deal with things like _this_ —” He wiped away a tear from Yuri’s eye. “—alone.”

Yuri stared at him, awestruck and speechless. “V-Victor…”

His fiancé let out an exaggerated sigh, running a hand through his hair. He did a complete 180, flipping to his usual lighthearted tone, a quaint smirk on his lips. “But I guess I was a bit too late this time, huh? I feel terrible. I went looking everywhere for you when Yurio said you looked panicked. Damn…”

“I still think you did a pretty good job,” Yuri said, trying on a smile. “Better than in China, at least.”

Victor’s face darkened, offset with a pout. “I still feel awful for that, alright? Such a low blow, Yuri. I’m gonna have to make you pay for that.”

“Yeah?”

“Oh yeah. With a kiss. Maybe even a couple.”

One second Yuri was laughing, the next, Victor’s lips were on his, all soft and sweet and gross and fond and gentle and messy and _perfect_. He felt the delighted hum singing in the back of Victor’s throat when they pushed their lips closer together, attempts to close as much space between them as possible.

Victor kissed him until their lips burned, until their lungs begged for air. He immediately pulled Yuri in for another hug— the drying fabric of his shirt felt gross and uncomfortable, but Victor’s warmth and the warm smell his cologne and his scent was more than enough to make up for it. Being in Victor’s arms felt like home.

Maybe Yuri had it all wrong from the beginning. He had learned to cope with this monster for years on its own, susceptible to its whims and its tide and turns. He was responsible for wading out the tides, for keeping himself grounded on shore. But things weren’t like that anymore— he didn’t have to deal with it alone. By some heavenly miracle, Victor _wanted_ to stay at his side and help him through the worst of it, hold onto him tight and never let go.

Yes, sometimes he was weak and his knees would give out, and water and foam would suffocate him. But Victor was there to pull him up, to drag him out of the worst of the waves, to keep him safe until the storm passed. They were stronger together than they ever could be apart.

It took a while, but Yuri started to notice a pattern in the circles Victor was tracing over his back. He was drawing hearts all over his back, across his shoulder blades, down his spine.

He buried his nose into Victor’s shoulder, holding him tighter. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> This piece is exceptionally close to my heart; it took a while to write just because it's difficult writing about something that plagues you, you know? But I'm glad I did. It felt therapeutic, in a sense.
> 
> And thank you so much for reading. I hope you enjoyed reading as much as I enjoyed writing it! Comments are always appreciated, I love hearing what you thought/liked/etc etc. And also follow me on twitter (@noiaos) and tumblr (@seventhimpact) For More, etc etc.


End file.
